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BIOHAZARD’s BILLY GRAZIADEI: ‘EVAN Quit. We Didn’t Want To Quit’

Michael Demos of Plug’d In Magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Billy Graziadei of New York hardcore/metal veterans BIOHAZARD. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Plug’d In Magazine: [The new BIOHAZARD album, “Reborn In Defiance”] is coming out Friday [January 20 in Europe], right?

Billy: I think it’s one of our bigger-sounding records. Worked hard on it. It reminds me of, like elements of all our records in the past. Grooves, fast, melody, some of our slower jams. It’s a perfect cross section of what I love about the band. It’s BIOHAZARD, but more mature. It’s BIOHAZARD now, 2012. There’s elements from “State Of The World Address”. We were just in the car, me and my buddy Steve, and he was like, “Oh, it sounds like this track.” It’s cool. It’s the same band. To have a chance to make record together, it’s a blessing for us to get back together, let alone get along for two months, let alone two years, and we kept shit growing, it wasn’t broken, we fixed it. And that’s when Evan [Seinfeld, bass/vocals] dropped the bomb and let us know he didn’t want to do it anymore, and he quit.

Plug’d In Magazine: How is your relationship with him still?

Billy: I have no ill feelings towards him. God bless him. I mean, I miss the dude, but I’m happy we’re where we are. When he quit, we had to make decisions. Do we quit ’cause he quit? Fuck no! So we wanted to continue, and it’s cool. We did China, took Scott [Roberts, bass/vocals] to China and he did a couple shows with us and a chance to play in China was unreal for us. I look at it like “Reborn In Defiance” is the record that we made as the four of us. The four original members of BIOHAZARD, you know all about us, it’s just a chapter in our history. Every band goes through some crazy shit, even me with BLOOD WITH BLOOD and their history. It’s what we do, it’s our lives. Whether you’re a musician, it doesn’t matter who you are. Life hands you cards, you just have to play it as you play it. And this is how we’re playing it. Evan quit. We didn’t want to quit.

Plug’d In Magazine: You’ve dedicated your life to this. It’s been 20-plus years. How has it impacted your life positively, and what are you taking away from it negatively? Would you change anything?

Billy: For me, I take away the positive. The negative shit, you just gotta let it bounce off your chest. I can’t take that with me. That will affect shit too much. Whether it’s haters talking shit, or whatever, to each his own. The positive shit, making a lot of friends, going around the world. I’ve had chances to see different places, and see different cultures. I wouldn’t have had that chance if it wasn’t for BIOHAZARD. I think that the band saved our lives in so many ways throughout our career, my life, that we wouldn’t…we’re all a product of our past and the people we meet. But the bands, the experiences that I’ve had…I am who I am because of what I’ve done. That’s the positive. The negative shit has gone behind me.

Plug’d In Magazine: Within 20 plus years, obviously the industry has changed numerous times, over and over. One label this, one label that. Where do you think it’s going now? You got digital downloads now. Has everything changed?

Billy: That’s funny that you ask that, ’cause in five days our record is going digital, it’s coming out for free… just go to RevolverMag.com, and it’s our way of saying thanks for all the support. We don’t get that many dates in the states, so we’re hoping we can get places we didn’t get to hit. Giving away the record is our way to say thank you. People send emails, messages, and the ones who have followed us over the last few years; it’s just our way of saying thanks. People who want a physical copy of the CD, of course we’ll have that. Later on the year, in the springtime, we’re going to release a physical copy with some extra stuff, with songs that we haven’t finished working on yet. It’s going to be another way to say we’re proud of being an American. Bands do that stuff for other countries…we wanted to do it for home.